Really Bad Timing

When we first moved into our urban Minneapolis home three years ago, Mark and I were too nervous to leave our front door open if we just left the room for a minute. Time has granted familiarity with our neighborhood, and now I regularly leave the front door open to let in the fresh outdoor breezes for hours at a time. Mark has never been completely comfortable with such casualness, but I've assured him that I do it all the time and nothing weird has ever happened.

Of course the one day that Mark is home alone with the front door open--I left for 20 minutes to get an iced chai--is the day that two unsolicited eastern European cleaning ladies let themselves in, call, "Hello? Hello?" and are in our upstairs bedroom with all their cleaning supplies before Mark even has a chance to figure out what's going on.

He was angry about the incident, and tragically sent them away. To me, it seemed like a fortuitous gift from above. Why don't cleaning ladies ever show up to clean the house when I'm home??